Why does every possible activity or idea have to be turned into a packaged product, the whole fun of building a fort (pillow or blanket) is the rudimentary crudeness of it, once again the fun is being taken out of an act because someone is desperate for that great idea without actually coming up with one.

I wanted to thank everyone for the feedback that you have all given here.

Almost everyone I've told about this product has told me what a great idea this is and that they'll definitely be getting one - but I haven't really gotten the project backing that I had hoped for once I launched on Kickstarter. So, while some of the comments below have been enough to make me cry myself to sleep, it's actually been really good feedback to get.

The sort of people that belong to a Forts subreddit were the sort of people I had in mind when I came up with this product, so if you guys aren't interested then clearly I've got to take a step back and reconsider my strategy, and maybe what I'm doing with my life.

I thought I'd address the two key complaints/comments below:

1) A fort construction kit ruins the fun of building a fort

To be honest, this is one I didn't expect. I honestly saw the way we build pillow forts and thought "wouldn't it be neat if..."

But I get your point, and I don't really have an answer for you that's going to change the way you feel about it. Some of the original product ideas did include magnetic clips which added on to your existing couch cushions, which I may come back to later, but I still don't think that would address what you've raised.

I have had parents who think it's neat that you can build a fort without having the cushions ripped off the couch, and also liked that they pack away into a piece of furniture, but again - this doesn't invlidate the other comments in this thread.

I guess the only real thing I can say is that building blocks were fun until Lego added the ability to snap them together. And while I realise it would be a huge stretch to compare this product to Lego, I'm hopeful that Squishy Forts will still appeal to those that want to add something else to their pillow fort construction.

2) The Price!!

My favourite comment was 'hilariously overpriced', and to be honest I think you guys were saying what everyone else that's seen this idea was thinking. Even the ones who were telling me what a fantastic idea it was. Even I knew this was a bit high, as I wanted to introduce the product at a much lower price point.

Unfortunately, there were two things that affected price:
1) Cost of Australian Manufacturing: so that I could coincide our project launch with Kickstarter Australia's launch, the only reliable quotes we could get in time were from local manufacturers. And that put up the cost insanely high - which is no surprise considering that the basic set alone has 124 magnets that need to be sewn into the covers.

2) Shipping: Because the product is a big, bulky foam product, there's some pretty steep shipping costs associated with this - particularly from Australia. Not to mention, we had to include domestic shipping costs on our reward levels, which I think took it from "a bit overpriced" to "hilariously overpriced"

But none of these problems should be the problem of the end consumer and so since I launched last week I've been working to get better manufacturing costs. As of earlier this week, I finally sorted out some terms for first-run, offshore manufacturing and fulfillment, which have allowed me to bring the pricing down considerably.

For a basic set, the reward level has gone from $249->$149 ($299->$149 once you subtract now-included international shipping), and for the advanced set it's gone from $369 down to $199 ($444->$199 for non-Australians).

I've also added in some limited numbers of "early bird" and "black friday" reward levels that mean some people will be able to get the basic kit for as little as $99.

So once again, thanks for the feedback. Based on some of the comments in this thread, I'm sure this isn't going to make everyone happy - but hopefully people in general find $99-149 to be a more affordable entry price.